Cheryl Schatz

Peter, I see that you have replied again while I was finishing my response. I don’t know how much more I can respond tonight and I have a very busy week ahead of me as I let things slide while I was teaching a class. You wrote: Actually, this shows the difference between you and I it would appear. I am primarily looking to determine (as a first exercise) what the words of Jesus meant to HIs hearers. In this regard, verse 40 had to have specific application to them – otherwise it is meaningless to them. Are you serious? Verse 40 has meaning to the crowd, but Jesus doesn’t say that the “everyone” is ONLY the crowd that stands before him. If you are going to limit this to the crowd in front of Jesus, you are going to have a big problem with verse 40 in being meaningless. John 6:40 “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” Jesus said that “everyone” who believes…this is the entire whole encompassing all. But Jesus said I Myself will raise “him” up. Who is the “him” that Jesus would raise up? Which one of the crowd would be raised up? Surely they see this as an inclusive statement, not exclusive so that only one person is raised up. The inclusivity of language would not be meaningless to the crowd. You wrote: As such, verse 40 refers to the people of that day FIRSTLY. They were the only ones who did SEE Jesus. The seeing is not a physical seeing, but perceiving. The Greek word translated as “beholds” or “sees” means to see with attention, observe, perceive. It isn’t a physical seeing but spiritually seeing. It is in the line of when Jesus said both that the Jews had not seen the Father’s form, yet He also said that he who has seen Jesus has seen the Father. John 5:37 “And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. John 14:9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Jesus is not talking about a physical seeing, but spiritually perceiving. You wrote: You will assert that this has a metaphorical SEEING built into the text – so that it can be exported as a CONCEPT. But this requires you to read into the passage a metaphorical notion of SEEING. I say it is a SPIRITUAL seeing. Just as no one saw the Father physically, yet Jesus said said they has seen the Father. And in the CONTEXT Jesus said that His words were spirit and life in John 6:63 showing that seeing Him and coming to Him is not a physical seeing nor a physical coming, but a spiritual seeing and coming. You wrote: By the way, I am NOT saying that EVERYTHING that Jesus said ONLY applied to them. What I am saying, is that we have to discern (by way of the context) which things were being said ONLY to them. We discern what Jesus meant by the words and grammar that He used. We do not discern by our feelings or by limiting the statement when no limitation is given. The basic understanding should be that Jesus included the crowd but did not limit it to them unless there is clear inspired words to make such a conclusion. You wrote: For example, we can take away from verse 40 that if we believe in him we may have eternal life. That fact is applicable to all people across time. But I cannot SEE Jesus today – in the way He is using the word in the text. The problem that you have is that “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have stern life” is a “forward pointing target” that goes back to “this” is the will of My Father. The will of the Father is the looking on the Son and believing. It is together. You can’t break it apart for it means the same. It works for you to break the two apart because you have already made up your mind that Jesus is ONLY referring to people who saw His physical body while He was on the earth, but that can’t be substantiated as it is attached to believing and is a forward pointing target in whole. I will take a screen print and try to input this into the conversation.